BiologyCode 5090
Sexual reproduction in plants
What this topic asks you to be able to do
- Identify and draw the parts of a flower pollinated by insects: the sepals and petals, the stamens (filaments and anthers) and the carpels (ovaries, ovules, styles and stigmas)
- Identify and draw the stigmas and anthers in a flower that is pollinated by wind
- Relate how each part of a flower is built to the function it performs, limited to the parts listed in 16.3.1
- Compare flowers pollinated by wind with flowers pollinated by insects, in their structure and in their pollen
- Outline how pollination happens, and distinguish self-pollination from cross-pollination
- Discuss how self-pollination and cross-pollination could affect a population, considering variation, the ability to respond to environmental change and how far the population relies on pollinators
- Describe how the pollen tube grows, how it gets into the ovule and how fertilisation follows (endosperm production and developmental detail are not needed)
- Appreciate that, once fertilisation has taken place, ovules turn into seeds and the ovary becomes a fruit
- Investigate the parts of a seed and describe how it is built, limited to the testa and the embryo (radicle, plumule and cotyledons)
- Appreciate that dispersing seeds and fruits by wind and by animals helps plants to colonise new areas and to cut down competition
- Relate the features of fruits dispersed by animals, and of fruits dispersed by wind, to their functions
- Investigate which environmental conditions influence seed germination and state them, limited to: water, oxygen and a suitable temperature
- Describe how germination occurs, including the part played by enzymes